Milam Calaboose

Located across from the Milam County Historical Museum housed in the historic jail, the bid to build the 1862 calaboose was accepted by the Cameron City Council from a company called Westmoreland and Mullinax for $262.60. Calaboose was to be accepted by Mayor A. J. Lewis and City Marshall R. L. Batte. Mayor Lewis later became Sheriff of Milam County.

The Calaboose is twenty feet long, ten feet wide, and twelve feet high. Thick wooden walls are formed by the placement of two-by-four-inch timbers flat on top of each other. The floor is of similar construction. The two-by-fours are placed edgewise forming a four-inch wall. There is a door at each end and two windows, one on each side of the building in both cells. The windows have two sets of iron bars – a rounded set of twelve that is built into the facing and a flat set of nine attached on the inside. To keep out the rain and also to help keep prisoners in, wooden shutters were put on the outside. There are iron bars on each shutter which served as a lock.

On July 3, 1956 an ordinance by Councilman Thompson was issued, authorizing the renovation of the calaboose for use by the city in confinement of prisoners.

The Calaboose was moved to its present site in 1994, and restored in June of 1998.